


Just Another Secret Between Friends

by murderofonerose (atmilliways)



Category: Metalocalypse (Cartoon)
Genre: Charles dies in canon so..., Don't think this really warrants a Major Character Death warning, Gen, M/M, Post-Episode: S02E19-20 Black Fire Upon Us, the locket
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-15 04:07:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28557348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atmilliways/pseuds/murderofonerose
Summary: Nathan had been trying to stop hyperventilating ever since he’d punched out the Klokateer who’d told them that Charles had been declared legally dead. It was thelegalpart, he was pretty sure. It made everything feel so final, so set in stone.
Relationships: Nathan Explosion/Charles Foster Offdensen
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15





	Just Another Secret Between Friends

**Author's Note:**

> The prompt was "Sharing Secrets." Nathan shares a secret, Toki just, uh... compounds it.

Nathan had been trying to stop hyperventilating ever since he’d punched out the Klokateer who’d told them that Charles had been declared legally dead. It was the _legal_ part, he was pretty sure. It made everything feel so final, so set in stone. 

And of course it reminded him of the guy, too. 

Toki, still drunk, was sitting next to him on the curb by the Dethbus, rubbing aimless circles on the larger man’s back whenever he wasn’t leaning to the other side to try and heave (at this point) a complete lack of stomach contents onto the pavement. 

“Breaths in,” Toki mumbled helpfully, then paused to yawn. “And breathes outs. . . .”

Nathan was sitting with his fists balled up on his knees, resting his forehead on his fists. His own hands felt ice cold against his flushed face. _How could Charles be dead? How could. . . ? How?_

“Nathan’s? Is you goings to pass out agains?”

He squeezed his eyes shut and grunted, “No.”

Toki was quiet for a minute, still moving his hand in slow circles. “Wouldn’t blames you if you does,” he said with drunken seriousness. “This really . . . really sucks ball.”

Nathan couldn’t argue that one. But his breathing was a little slower now and there wasn’t so much of a roaring in his ears anymore; he lifted his head and stared across the road into the vast, dark nothing. Apparently security protocol in case of Mordhaus being burned to the ground was to herd the band onto the bus and drive them to the middle of nowhere, where they would presumably be less surrounded by potential attackers. They were in the middle of some sort of desert or something. 

It felt wrong that each breath no longer felt like he was trying to keep from drowning. How could someone so important just be _gone forever_ and it not fucking kill him just to know that? Nathan stared out into the black night, pierced by indifferent stars that illuminated nothing, they were just sort of there while the landscape below was still swathed in shadows. A moonless night. Maybe that was why their attackers had chosen it. Nathan pressed a hand to his chest and felt a warm circle of metal digging in over his heart, and remembering it and what it stood for made his breath hitch all over again. 

“What ams it?” Toki asked blearily. “Talks to ol’ Toki, I helps.”

Nathan drew it out from under his shirt and held it in the center of one large palm—a gold locket that had, ugh, _sentimental value_ on account of being passed down from the distant however many times grandmother who’d eaten her first husband in a soup. He’d had it polished and refurbished, a secret compartment put in behind the single tiny portrait it contained, for after the release party. The plan had been: show it to Charles, mention the compartment amidst talking about the locket’s brutal history, and then when he opened it, boom. Ring. Proposal, hopefully not too sappy like he’d always kicked himself for letting it get whenever he had practiced. A yes, hopefully. _Engaged_. He’d wanted it so bad it had felt painfully exciting to think about just a few hours ago. 

Now it was just painful. 

“I need you to get rid of this for me,” Nathan replied flatly. He _felt_ flat. Crushed, like an empty beer can. Deflated. All the air had leaked out for good while he’d been hyperventilating and now he was just an empty husk—and yet, he was still alive. Fucking brutal. Closing his fist and yanking hard, he felt nothing as the chain snapped. “Here,” he added, thrusting it towards his bandmate, “throw it into the fucking desert. Drop it in a vat of acid. Flush it down a toilet. I don’t fucking care, I just . . . don’t ever want to see it again.”

Blinking, Toki accepted the offering, which looked much bigger in his hand than it had in Nathan’s. He was so bemused by the idea of Nathan wearing jewelry that he didn’t manage to say anything in reply. 

“Well? Go on, _do it_ ,” Nathan growled, dropping his head wearily back into his hands. He wanted to sleep for a hundred years. Then maybe, when he finally woke up, this would all be over—only remembered like some half-felt and fading nightmare.

“Okays, buddy.” Toki gave him a pat on the back and lurched obediently to his feet. He was fine, he was being helpful—he was still drunk off his ass, but _shhhhh_ , that was a secret between him and Nathan. That was _clearly_ why Nathan, in turn, was showing him his secret necklace. 

With purposeful (if not exactly straight-line) strides, he made his way across the street, even though there was more nowhere in basically any direction. It was probably a good thing that this route had been selected for its extreme lack of traffic. When he arrived, boots crunching on side-of-the-road gravel and other debris, Toki took a closer look at what he was holding and thumbed the locket open out of sheer curiosity. 

Inside, there was a tiny picture of Charles. _Oh._

He glanced back at Nathan. The poor guy wasn’t watching, just sitting on the curb looking utterly defeated and lost, and it was so fucking sad that Toki wanted to throw up again. Would have, too, if there was anything left in the tank, but that last projectile vomit had sailed hours ago. 

This wasn’t like losing a dad who you hated, but were sort of obligated to love, but who you hated anyway, but who you _wanted_ to be the kind of person you _could have_ loved, if things had been different. Even Toki, drunk off his ass, knew that without Charles they were pretty much fucked. Hell, their home had been attacked and burned down even _with_ Charles at the helm, and five guys who knew metal music and how to get fucked up and that was pretty much it weren’t likely to do any better going forward. 

But also, you didn’t just carry a locket with a picture of someone if all they were to you was the guy who ran your business empire. This was _important_ to Nathan. And if there was anything Toki knew, it was that important things had to be kept—like his deddybear, even though he’d mostly moved on from needing to clutch at the stuffed animal for comfort after bad nightmares or due to fear of the dark. 

Toki looked out into the darkness, then back towards his bandmate. No . . . Nathan had handed him a secret and asked never to have to see it again, but that didn’t mean it should just be thrown away. What if he changed his mind someday? So Toki closed his fingers protectively around the locket, closing it (not noticing that there was an extra, tiny click of something shifting slightly inside where there just should have been solid backing), and shoved it in his pocket. He’d get the chain fixed and keep it safe for the guy, just in case.


End file.
